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NHRA Pomona - 2005 Season

The NHRA Sony Xplod sport compact drag racing season finale at Pomona Raceway had more than its fair share of thrills, spills and high-tension drama. Three of the five class championships had been decided and the leaders in the remaining two classes needed to qualify and stage to clinch, so the chase was in pursuit of the record book and one day of glory.

At the center of the frenzy were Tony Shagday with the Skunk2 Acura Integra and Norris Prayoonto in the Clutch Masters Honda Insight in All Motor, Marty "The One Man Party" Ladwig in his Chevy Cobalt in Pro FWD, and Stephan Papadakis in the AEM Civic and Brad Personett in the Titan Mail Order Scion tC in Pro RWD.

In All Motor things were quiet during qualifying but heated up quickly during the "loser-goes-home" rounds. Shagday ran a 9.83 in the first round of qualifying but was light on the scales and thus DQ'd. When qualifying finished up, Prayoonto, the record holder going in (9.848), was atop the ladder with a 9.914.

In the first round of eliminations Jeremy Lookofsky made some more history fresh off winning his first Wally. He power-shifted the DVS Shoes Civic into the 9s with a 9.992, becoming the first all-motor Prelude-engined vehicle in the 9s. Later in the round Prayoonto laid down the gauntlet blasting a 9.852 and positioning himself for another run at the record book.

Shagday counterpunched in the second round, dropping a 9.741 at 140.63 mph on class champ, Jesus Padilla. This put Shagday in the driver's seat. Prayoonto posted a 9.987, which did not challenge the record.

In the third frame Shagday sealed the deal with a 9.836 at 139.49 mph, which backed up his 9.741 e.t. and speed from the second round. Prayoonto ran a 9.952 to advance to what looked on paper to be a door-handle-to-door-handle 9-second final.

The looks did not deceive as the two Hondas squared off in what is the quickest side-by-side All Motor race ever. Norris took a .089-second advantage off the tree but Shagday and the Skunk2 Integra were on a mission and his lightning quick 1.407-second 60-foot time set the table for a mad dash into history. At the top end it was Shagday 9.639, Prayoonto 9.893. Shagday's e.t. was too quick to qualify for NHRA's one-percent rule but nonetheless stands as the quickest All Motor pass in history.

In Pro FWD it was Marty Ladwig on the warpath. He rolled off the trailer and screamed to an awe-inspiring 7.124 at 189 mph. His lane mate in this qualifying pass was Shaun Carlson who was well into the 7s himself posting a 7.635 in the Mopar Neon. But the most exciting part of these runs came in the traps where both cars got loose and angled to the right. Ladwig, who was more stable than Carlson, was able to correct and averted hitting anything solid. Carlson was not so lucky as his Mopar veered left and hit the wall hard then went across the track and hit the right side wall.

Carlson escaped unscathed and was quick to point to his HANS device, other safety equipment and his Nuformz chassis as saviors. Ladwig needed a 7.19 to back up his qualifying pass but many in the pits shuddered to think that we could be on the brink of a 6-second front-wheel drive pass. Those shuddering were in the right as Ladwig related that data logging showed him lifting at about 1,100 feet, which meant that the 7.12 could have been a six.

Ladwig set the clutch up a tad too aggressively in the second qualifier and hazed the tires badly. In eliminations he got a touch squirrelly at the top end but still managed a 7.379, which edged Nelson Hoyos out of the record book. In the final, Ladwig blasted a 7.588 which did not lower his 7.37 and wasn't enough to back up his 7.12. So he too has the class record (7.37) that is not his best pass of the event, a 7.12, the quickest ever front-drive pass.

The guys snuck up on the record challenge in Pro RWD. Impressively, five of the seven cars in the field were in the 6s after qualifying. The grid showed Steph on top (6.617) followed by Matt Scranton (6.654), Matt Hartford (6.727), Brad Personett (6.765) and Vinny Ten (7.808) in the Performance Motorsports 350Z. No one really threatened Hartford's 6.52 record.

In the first elimination round Steph dropped an unopposed 6.591 at 212 mph, which put him in the neighborhood of the class record and set the Pomona e.t. track record.

In the semis, Personett lined up against Steph and the fireworks that ensued will be talked about for some time. Near identical reaction times saw the cars run down the track like they were attached at the door handles. In the end of the quickest-ever sport compact drag race Personett edged out Steph 6.537 to 6.604. The speeds were historical as Personett and the Titan Mail Order Scion were clocked at 216.69 mph and Steph tached out at 213.60 mph in the AEM Civic. No records here but the showdown was pure energy.

The Pro RWD final was an all Team Titan affair and Personett left no doubt as his stout 6.612 attests to. Ed Marx in the flamed Titan Celica got way out of the groove early and tagged the wall lightly. The car is fine but the trick Mike Lavallee flame job will need to be addressed in the off-season.

In Hot Rod, it was the whole 2005 season in a microcosm as woefully outgunned challengers chased Ron Lummus and the Garrett Turbo Sunfire. After blasting 7.949 and 7.821 e.t.s in qualifying Lummus was atop the grid; 0.642 seconds ahead of second-place qualifier, Stephanie Eggum. Things went as scripted as Lummus powered through the field notching 7.766, 7.794 and a 7.825 to make the money race. Eggum went as fast as 8.446 en route to the final but suffered mechanical maladies and was no match for Lummus' 7.807 at 186 mph in the final.

As familiar as Hot Rod was, was how fresh the Modified class was. Newcomer Dee Koragiannis put his Mazda FD RX-7 on the pole with an 8.165 e.t. Ken Scheepers was right on Koragiannis' tail running an 8.179 in his RX-8. These raging rotaries were on a collision course with Koragiannis emerging as the favorite based on his smooth 8.094 during eliminations. Turns out there may have been some sandbagging on Koragiannis' part as the deep blue RX-7 sailed to victory in a wicked 7.860 at 169.13 mph.

In a season of downsizing of turbos, limits on boost and other strategies to slow the evolution of some of the cars, every record in every class was broken in 2005. Four of the 10 new benchmarks were established at Pomona; that's peaking at the right time. It will be interesting to see were the teams pick up in 2006.

For those suffering from drifting withdrawals after the epic Formula D season finale, the guys at Just Drift had just the solution with the annual All Star Bash at Willow Springs Raceway this past Saturday and Sunday.